Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Rally at 47 E. 3rd Street

While business proceeded as usual at the hair salon across the street from 47 East 3rd Street this last Saturday a protest rally of 300 to 400 people lined the barricades along both sides of the street to rally support for the tennants of the building against the building's owner Alistair Economakis and family in the tennants battle to stay in their apartments at 47 E. 3rd . Numerous tennant activists and elected officials including Council Person Rosie Mendez and Borough President Scott Stringer spoke to the cause before the attending largely pro-tennant crowd .

The only difficulties noticed during the rally was an altercation in the midst of the crowd between Tom Weiss and Mike Mckee of the New York State Tennants & Neighborhood Coalition which involved Weiss vociferously claiming that McKee had at some time in the past in some way caused Weiss to be evicted from his apartment . Weiss was persued by police on the scene and convinced to calm down , which he did . Weiss shortly left the rally .

The issues here are ones of the law pertaining to the ownership of residential property , tennants rights and the possibility of the continued existence of a middle class in New York City in the future : the Economakis family wants to evict the existing tennants of the building so that it can turn the building into a mansion-size home for itself .

The issues have been heard at the State Supreme Court level and at the State Appellate Court level with the court last deciding for the Economakis family . Any final legal descision in this case ,that may or may not be heard by the highest court of the State of New York , will necessarily have consequences that affect residential tennancy law , thus the extremely heated contest over the 47 E 3rd St.

The tenants of 47 East 3rd are a diverse group of people with one common thread--they are good people and well liked by the community! I have heard rumors that Economakis, very uncool landlord, mass evict our long term valued community members for their manison and Economakis family can afford to live anywhere including Greenwhich Conn; happily throw the tenants out of their homes of a decade or two decades or more, have even taken one of their kids to court for a bogus charge, a dent in a wall in the front entrance, and that also at Norfolk St with a super, research that story...it is disturbing as well...anotherwards using the law in any way possible and their enormous big bucks hoping people who do not have their great wealth will just cave in or be frightened off. Seems all very abusive and also like they no empathy what so ever. Economakis even hired (can't imagine they would do it for free) people to hand out flyers out the rally telling their side.The legal system and the city agencies needs to change to prevent and their big bucks landlords--real estate monsters from pushing out long term residents and harrassing valued members, long term members of the community.Write the Governor and tell them how strongly you feel about 47 East 3rd Street and also we need legislation to change to support tenants and not wealthy landlords.

While I don't like the idea of people being driven out of the community, I also don't like the idea of people being told what they can and can't do with their own property. The fact of the matter is that this family owns that building, and if they want to use it as a mansion for themselves then they should be able to, once the current leases expire. I don't like people being driven out of the neighborhood (hell, I'll be gone once my lease expires on July 1st since I can't afford it here anymore), but who are we to say what someone can do with their own private property?

News flash! The Villager took a break from having NYU write public relation pieces for them and shoving zoning hero only in his own mind, McWater done our throats to actually cover evictions and front page...but they did shove John Fout down our throats. Alexandra mentioned she and he read emails together so did they listen to John on the radio together. I think they both live on a street that doesn't have bars. Where tight circle of representatives and the villager is either shoving p.r. down our throats or mcwater the bar czar wants us to shove it, our wish that he step down completely from the board as it is a huge conflict of intersest him owning all those watering holes...lots of conflicts of interests but maybe that is just politics. Bottom line is the community is not being represented and most don't even know what is a community board or where they meet and if the community doesn't know than we can't express any upset so it is just one being love fest of mutual admiration! The Villager actually seemed to remember itself but it now like Rhe Village Voice -- rarely a voice for the village but at least in The Voice they are not shoving p.r. for certain people here down our throats.